White Robe
by Fading to Black
Summary: Songfic. Post Angel Fire. The team puts themselves back together. Small/Implied Willow x Alex


Willow slowly washed her face, looking into the mirror for a moment. Her jeans were getting really worn out and grimy and her shirt had seen much better days. Her hair was now dark brown. The dye had been wearing off and her hair had been growing out some. When it was down, the tips reached her shoulders. She contemplated cutting it again.

They should have guessed that Nevada was a trick, of course. The angels probably didn't think they'd need an actual camp, since they weren't expected to survive the Torre Mayor. She wiped her hands on the jeans, feeling dirty.

_Feeling ugly looking pretty_  
_ Yellow ribbons black graffiti_  
_ Word is written bone is broken_  
_ No big secret left unspoken_  
_ Sun is painted in the corner_  
_ But it's never getting warmer_  
_ All the lies they keep on selling_  
_ But you never check the spelling_

The motel was really run down, but it was all they could afford at the moment. Sam's ankle had healed, thankfully. However, there was still no trace of Kara or Brendan. That meant that they hadn't gotten out of Mexico City in time after all. Seb and Willow kept probing psychically, though Raizel seemed to have severed the bit of Willow's aura from his. In the process, any mental barriers between the two were broken down. For better or worse.

They all reminded themselves that they were lucky that the sun still rose in the morning and set in the evening for them, but it was hard. And it never really got better.

_Flying bullets_  
_ Hit the targets_  
_ Wings and halos_  
_ 5 to 7_  
_ In this white robe_  
_ Through the darkness_  
_ Paragliding_  
_ Back to heaven_

Mexico City and the episode at the Cathedral, the Zocalo, and the Torre Mayor had not been forgotten. None of them would ever forget the bullets flying all around. Trish's angel burn. Wesley going down, already injured from the day before, because of her. Kara's face as she saw Alex and realized they were right. When she hustled Brendan out. The look on Willow, or on Alex, when Raizel appeared. The mad rush up the stairs after all the other exits were blocked. The flying off the building on the angels. Watching their numbers go from 9 to 7 to 5 to 7.

Watching the city get torn to shreds behind them.

_Time is running we are sitting_  
_ Back together just for splitting_  
_ You are crying in the corner_  
_ Always next and never former_  
_ Open up and let me hear it_  
_ Former body future spirit_  
_ Brain is useless chair is rocking_  
_ Open doors for dead man walking_

Time was irrelevant, since there was no point in crying over spilled milk. That was something Trish would have done. Their loyalties, even to the half-angels, were cemented. Sam, no matter how vocal he had been about Seb and Willow, and Liz's more scathing disapproval had abated.

And, thankfully, Alex didn't have angel burn. Neither did any of the others that were there, though their auras had all taken some degree of damage. It was just some backlash from too many angel killings. Alex had gotten sick of not knowing what happened, so he had cornered Willow until she gave way. It hadn't taken much, since she loved him as much as he loved her. She'd also started wearing the crystal pendant again, much to Alex's approval and relief.

TV was worthless, though. It was just telling them about the very destruction that plagued them. If they worried about it too much, thought about all the dead people without thinking of the angels' part in it that the TV newscasters were completely unaware of they would become hollow people.

AKs were not heartless. But in the depressed state they were in after losing half of their team and watching so much killing and destruction that was, at least partially and indirectly, their fault, they were vulnerable to that sort of emotion. Nevada hadn't helped.

At least angels hadn't been laying in wait in droves for them. That would have cemented the depression into them to the point of uselessness, in spades.

_Flying bullets_  
_ Hit the targets_  
_ Wings and halos_  
_ 5 to 7_  
_ In this white robe_  
_ Through the darkness_  
_ Paragliding_  
_ Back to heaven_

But eventually it would come to pass, Willow told herself. Alex told himself. Sam and Liz and Seb told themselves. Sometime that destruction would be over and the world would still be there. They still had a job to do. If they wanted to, it could be to avenge their fallen comrades as much as their original reasons. That part didn't matter.

The angels, ethereal in their shimmering, white robes with their gleaming silver auras with the semi-vulnerable halos could just go to hell as far as they were concerned. Or, in their case, back to heaven. It didn't matter.

But it didn't happen that way, and it wouldn't. So Willow, from her little bathroom in a run down motel in the middle of nowhere somewhere around Nevada, knew that they would all prepare and train. They would be ready when they got the chance to strike at the angels again. They would destroy tha angels.

She was sure that they would not settle for anything less. And for that she was glad, and as determined as the rest of them.

**AN: Song: White Robe by t.A.T.u  
I heard this song and it was perfect for the story in my mind. So even if you don't like my story, listen to the song with the books in mind.  
**


End file.
